One of the simplest and most overlooked aspects of being organized is getting your knowledge base articles in order. You have to think about where to put your articles so that your customers can easily locate them, so you must begin with the assumption that everything fits into a category or hierarchy of similar things. 

Zoho Desk allows you to organize your articles in the following tree structure: Category > Sections > Sub-sections > Sub-subsection > Articles. That is, you can create a maximum of three hierarchies under a category. However, you cannot have orphan articles in a category if you add a child section underneath it.

Category 

The category is a top-level folder in your knowledge base, and it is linked to a department. When you add a new department, it creates its default category and section in your KBase. You can add additional sections underneath the category to further organize your articles.

Adding Categories 

Besides the default categories, you can add custom categories that are linked to one or more of your departments. Such categories can be added with articles at the root-level or can include a nesting of sections to organize articles as per your needs.

To add a new category

1. Navigate to the Knowledge Base (KB) module.
2. Click Manage KB from the left menu.
   
   
   
   
3. Click Organize Category under the Manage KB sub-menu.
4. Click Create Category in the top right corner of the page.
   The Add Category window slides open from the right.
   
   
   
   
   
   
5. On the Add Category window, do the following:
1. Select a Display Picture from the library.
   You can also upload a picture from your computer.
2. Enter a name and description for your category.
3. Select the department(s) with which you want to associate the category.
4. Select a visibility setting. You can choose from None, Groups, Public, Agents, or Custom IP.
   Note: You can also refer to the category visibility and display permission settings section for more details.
5. Specify how you want your customers to read through the articles. You can choose between list or quick navigation. With quick navigation, you can group related articles and guide customers sequentially from one article to another.
6. Turn on the Auto-create Tickets from Feedback option, if required. When you do, you must select the department where you would like to create tickets and the agent it should be assigned to automatically. Learn more
7. Specify Reviewers.
   
6. Click Save.

Editing Categories

You can edit the default categories that are created for departments for their display picture, description, etc., according to your preference.

To edit an existing category

1. Navigate to the Knowledge Base (KB) module.
2. Click Manage KB from the left menu.
3. Click Organize Category under the Manage KB sub-menu.
4. Hover over the desired category and click Edit.
   The Edit Category window slides open from the right.
   
   
   
   
5. Make the necessary edits to the category. 

Deleting Categories

You can delete both the default (i.e., created for a department) and custom categories created in your KBase.

To delete a category

1. Navigate to the Knowledge Base (KB) module.
2. Click Manage KB from the left menu.
3. Click Organize Category under the Manage KB sub-menu.
   
   
   
   
4. Hover over the desired category and click the Delete icon (  ).

Category Visibility and Display Permission Settings

To make a category visible in the help center, you must define its visibility in the Zoho Desk interface. The visibility of a category determines the user's access to the articles that are published under a category.

There are five visibility options to choose from:

1) None 

Categories with a 'none' visibility will be accessible to both registered and non-registered users. 

If the none visibility option is selected, the KB articles created under this category will have all the visibility options to pick from the list. 

1. Agents only
2. Registered Users
3. All users
   

2) Groups

 Categories with 'groups' visibility will be accessible only to certain user groups. If the groups visibility option is selected, the KB articles created under this category will be accessible only to the registered users. 

3) Public

If the 'public' visibility option is selected, the KB articles created under this category will have Registered users and All users options to pick from the list. 

4) Agents 

Categories with 'agent' visibility will be accessible only to the agents of the Desk portal. Agents can access the articles published under this category within the Desk interface.

5) Custom IP 

Categories with 'Custom IP' visibility will be accessible only to the registered users within the given IP addresses. The registered users must visit the help center by logging into their account with the same IP address mentioned in the category. You can specify the desired custom IP addresses separately for which the category must be visible in the IP Addresses field.

If the category visibility permission is changed later, then the display permission of KB articles within this category will be set to "Registered users" until you change it manually.

Adding Sections

Users can add maximum of 700 (including the root category) sections under a category and they can create up to 699 sections within a root category, with a maximum of four hierarchical levels. The sections will help you to group your articles on a common theme. To add a section in Knowledge Base

1. Navigate to the Knowledge Base (KB) module.
2. Click Manage KB from the left menu.
3. Click Organize Category under the Manage KB sub-menu.
   Select the desired category to add the section.
   
   
   
   
4. Click the Add link displayed alongside Section.
   The Add Section window slides open from the right.
5. Select a Display Picture from the library.
   You can upload a picture from your computer.
6. Enter a name and description for the new section.
7. Select a visibility setting for the section. 
   Note: If the category's visibility is none then you can choose from None, Groups, Public, Agents, or Custom IP. If not, the section's visibility permission is inherited from its parent category.
8. Click Save.
   Repeat the steps to add more sections or sub-sections.
   
   
   
   
   

A new section is added, and the articles that were existing in the category are moved to this section. You can also follow the above steps to add child sections linked to a section. Moreover, you can use the breadcrumb navigation to find your way around the categories and sections in your KBase.

Editing Sections

You can edit the sections, child, or parent as and when required in your KBase.

To edit a section

1. Navigate to the Knowledge Base (KB) module.
2. Click Manage KB from the left menu.
3. Click Organize Category under the Manage KB sub-menu.
4. Select a category and then navigate to the desired section to edit.
5. Hover over the section and click the More Actions icon (  ).
6. Select Edit from the More Actions menu.
   
   
   
   
7. Make the required changes to the section and click Save.
   

The section will be updated. You can also follow the above steps to edit the child sections linked to a section. 

Deleting Sections

You can also delete the sections added underneath a category.

To delete a section

1. Navigate to the Knowledge Base (KB) module.
2. Click Manage KB from the left menu.
3. Click Organize Category under the Manage KB sub-menu.
4. Select a category and then navigate to the desired section to delete.
5. Hover over the section and click the Delete icon (  ).
   Note: If the section contains articles, you will be prompted to move or delete them. 

You can follow the above steps to delete the child sections linked to a parent section. Please keep in mind that you must delete the child sections before you delete its parent. 

Reordering Categories and Sections

Reordering your knowledge base folders is important because a casual reader rarely gets to the bottom. You can manually reorder the categories and their respective parent and child sections so that the most relevant and useful topics stay at the top.

To reorder categories and sections

1. Navigate to the Knowledge Base (KB) module.
2. Click Manage KB from the left menu.
3. Click Organize Category under the Manage KB sub-menu.
4. Grab the category by the Reorder icon (  ) and drag-drop it, where required.
   
   
   

You can follow the same steps as above to reorder sections within a category.

Besides, manual reordering, you can leave it for the system to automatically sort and order your categories and sections alphabetically. Here is how you could do it:

1. Click the Knowledge Base (KB) module.
2. Click Manage KB from the left menu.
3. Toggle ON the Sort categories/sections alphabetically option.
   
   
   

The knowledge base folders will be sorted alphabetically from A-Z. Please note that this option applies only to the folders and not to their articles. 

Moving Sections

You can move the articles in a KBase folder to a different section within a category. For example, let's consider that you have 2 sections namely, Zylker Tablets and Zylker Handhelds. You can move the articles under Zylker Tablets to Zylker Handhelds. In such case, the section Zylker Tablets will be added as a sub-section to Zylker Handhelds and the articles will be moved underneath it.

To move folders within a category

1. Navigate to the KBase folder you want to move.
   It can be either a section, sub-section, or sub-subsection.
2. Hover over the desired section and click the More Actions icon (  ). 
3. Select Move from the More Actions menu.
   
   
   
   
4. In the pop window that appears, specify the category, section, and/or sub-section from the drop-down menu.
5. Click Move.